NYC Commuter Therapy

NYC commuter therapy through procedurally generated music

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Inspiration

We thought about the atmospheric states that people seem to enter in movie scenes, which contrasts with our experiences as NYC commuters.

For us as commuters, music becomes more of an emotional utility through apps like Spotify, iTunes, Pandora, etc.

We wanted to re-conceive

What it does

Procedurally generates music throughout a train ride through New York City

How I built it

Built the underlying music generation program using Python, put together the web application and interface using Angular.js

Challenges I ran into

  • Learning how to create a user experience and interface that is more therapeutic and less stressful than that of existing music programs

  • Identifying the patterns and sounds associated with certain musical "moods"

  • Learning how to use different code frameworks--front-end and back-end--to produce musical sounds

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

  • Putting together a user story that reframes the way we listen to music and audio on our devices

What I learned

  • The process of user-centered design in action: rethinking the status quo of our relationship to digital devices by looking not to the functionality of existing apps, but the feelings of existing users

  • How to assemble a full stack web application with a team--from the back end program to the front end interface

What's next for NYC Digital Music Therapy

We want to develop this into a full-fledged mindfulness application that users can use as alternatives to existing music apps. Since most of us only have experience coding simple programs, this is a really interesting exercise in building a full fledged application.

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